


Madness

by kosmickway (KMDWriterGrl)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KMDWriterGrl/pseuds/kosmickway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JJ and Hotch have a frank discussion about her role in the BAU after she's injured in a take-down. Set in a slightly-AU season 3 with neither Will nor Haley in the picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madness

**_“I can’t get these memories out of my mind. Some kind of madness has started to unfold … I have finally seen the light. I have finally realized what you mean.” –Muse, “Madness”_ **

JJ darted after Reid as they made their way around one side of the house, Prentiss and Rossi disappearing from her line of sight as they moved around the other side. She couldn’t see the others but she knew that Hotch and several officers had taken the front, Morgan and two others the back. 

She crouched, gun drawn. Reid, behind her and to her right, had his gun out and was murmuring quiet words into his throat mike. 

A shadow darted through the trees 100 yards away. JJ half rose, tense, poised to spring forward. Hyper-alert, she could sense Reid moving out of his own crouch, ready to follow her lead. 

The shadow moved. Closer. Closer. The distance between her, Reid, and the shadow closed. 50 yards. 30 yards. 

JJ burst up in one fluid movement and pointed her gun, knowing Reid was right behind her, his own gun drawn. 

“FBI. Hands where I can see them!”

The shadow moved. 

Before her finger could apply pressure to the trigger, it was out of her line of sight. An immense weight slammed into her mid-section, sending her sprawling. Her gun went off with an explosive blast as she fell. 

She hit the ground hard, seeing stars, air knocked from her lungs. This felt the same as being slammed by a speeding soccer ball, only by an object roughly ten times bigger and many times heavier. 

It took a second for her vision to clear and when it did Reid was bending over her, his mouth forming words she couldn’t hear. She managed to weakly lift her arm to signal him to pursue the unsub, but he shook his head. She wanted to insist but knew it would get her nowhere– the last time they’d split up Reid had been in a hospital for nearly a week. 

Her ears were clearing. She could hear shouts now. Morgan flew by, sprinting all out with his gun drawn, Emily and Rossi close behind. Emily pounded after Morgan, while Rossi broke away and dropped to JJ’s side. 

“JJ? You okay?” Rossi looked expectantly at Reid. “What happened?”

“She _literally_ went flying.” Reid’s hands moved to JJ’s vest and started to pluck at the velcro straps. “Help me loosen these.”

Rossi’s hands were more nimble than Reid’s and the tightly belted straps began to loosen until she could take a deeper breath. “We heard a shot.”

“My gun,” JJ whispered. Her lungs felt like they were bursting. “Went off when he hit me.”

“So he only hit you. He didn’t shoot you?” There was an edge of tension in Rossi’s voice that she didn’t normally associate with the calm profiler. 

“Didn’t shoot me,” she managed, propping herself up on her elbows.

“Can you sit up all the way?” Rossi asked. “Let’s get that vest off.”

It took everything in her to make her body move correctly and when she did it felt like an ice pick was being drilled between her ribs. She gasped out the air she was just getting back. She wasn’t aware of much after that– just of tunneling vision and someone easing her back onto the ground. 

When her eyes cleared, she could see Reid on his cell, calling for a paramedic. Rossi had somehow managed to get her vest off. 

“JJ, are you with me?” he was saying. 

“Yeah.” She tried to focus her eyes on his, knowing he’d be looking for the tell-tale signs of shock.

“I’m going to put my hands on your rib cage. If it hurts that much to sit up you might have a broken rib.”

“You’re just trying to feel me up,” she joked feebly, hoping that the slight bit of humor would reassure him.

He laughed a little and she could feel the vibrations from that laugh in his fingers as he lightly pressed at the spaces around and beneath her rib cage.

“I took a few EMT courses before I signed back on with the Bureau. Mostly it was research for a new book but it comes in handy. I don’t want to move you if you’ve broken something.” His fingers kept probing, using the barest hint of pressure. She winced and Rossi grimaced. “Sorry.”

Footsteps and voices sounded. Hotch came into her field of vision along with Reid. 

“JJ.” Hotch got on his knees next to her, never mind the suit that undoubtedly cost more than most of her wardrobe combined. “What happened?”

“Body checked by the unsub,” she said. “Please tell me you got him.”

“We did.”

“And please tell me Morgan body checked _him_.”

Hotch let a hint of a smile cross his face. “I’ll make sure he trips and falls on the guy on the way to the squad car.”

“Good.” She shifted and shut her eyes as she fought to keep back a grimace. “You guys okay?”

“Morgan’s sporting a nice bite mark on his hand.”

“He BIT Morgan?”

Hotch raised his eyebrows. “I stopped being surprised a long time ago.”

“Granted I’m not a doctor, JJ, but I think you’re mostly bruised.” Rossi’s hands still rested gently on her sides and she watched Hotch’s eyes flicker from her face to Rossi’s hands and back again. “If you can get your arms around my neck, I can carry you.”

JJ shook her head. It might feel better to have Rossi (or, better, Hotch) carry her but she wasn’t going to let them. If she couldn’t stand and walk under her own power, she wasn’t going to be able to look any of them in the eye. 

“I can walk,” she said firmly.

“JJ–“ Reid started to say, face concerned.

“I can,” she insisted. She held her hand up for Reid to take hold of. “Help me, okay?”

Reid took both her hands and helped her stand up, bracing her by her upper arms when she swayed forward, off balance. Rossi’s hands came up to steady her shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, JJ saw Hotch start to step toward her, before being stopped by the ring of his cell. 

It took a few minutes, and though she had to lean on Reid and Rossi, JJ managed to walk her way back to the team’s SUV and struggle out of her equipment. Emily and Morgan had just packed their killer into the squad car and were heading for the SUV, too. Morgan had a blood-soaked handkerchief wrapped around his hand. 

“He bit you?” JJ queried, looking to Morgan for confirmation. 

“Yeah, the son of a bitch,” he replied. “What’d he do to you?”

“Body check.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t snap you in half.” 

“Soccer player, remember? I’m stronger than I look.”

“Still.” Morgan looked concerned. “They’re saying they want to give me a tetanus. Does Hotch want you to get X-rays?”

“Yep. And you know they won’t give up until we’ve seen the inside of the ER,” she said, pulling herself up into the car with a wince. “Let’s get this over with so we can go home.”

***

Two hours later they were on the Bureau plane, heading back to DC. The flight from LA would be a long one, even though the jet normally cut down on travel time. 

JJ settled herself on the couch on the back of the plane. The hospital had given her prescription strength Tylenol for her bruised ribs but it wasn’t doing much good. 

After they’d been in the air about 20 minutes, Hotch came back to where she was resting. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I just finished the longest, most gruesome soccer match of my life.”

“Did he hit you that hard?”

JJ edged up her shirt so that Hotch could see her ribs. Her pale skin was all ready turning a deep ugly purple that could be seen even under the bandages.

“God, JJ, I had no idea! Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” 

“Let me get you an ice pack, at least.” He seemed truly anxious for her welfare. Knowing that he wouldn’t settle down until she had acquiesced, she nodded and watched him disappear into the tiny galley, reappearing moments later with an iced gel pack wrapped in a dish towel. 

“Thanks,” she said with a smile, hiding a wince as she applied the pack to her sore side. 

 “Do you need anything else? Water? A pillow?”

It wasn’t like Hotch to get so wound up and anxious. She wondered what was going on behind that inscrutable unit chief mask he always wore. 

“Aaron.” JJ reached out to touch his arm, not cognizant of the fact that she had used his first name until it was out of her mouth. “I’m okay. You don’t need to coddle me.”

He glanced at her hand in surprise, but when she moved to take it away, thinking she had overstepped, he placed his own firmly over hers, surprising the hell out of her. What he did next surprised her even more—he sat down on the floor next to the couch so that they were eye to eye, his hand still over hers. 

 “I don’t want it to come across as coddling. I’m just …” He searched for the right phrase and finally came up with “…concerned.” He frowned and then shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I mean, it is, but it’s more than that.” He sighed in frustration. “I guess what I’m worried about is--” He trailed off then averted his gaze. “I don’t know how to say this without offending you.”

JJ laughed softly and squeezed his bicep. “Hotch—Aaron. Just say it. Do you really think I’m that easy to offend?”

Hotch actually smiled at that, a real smile that lit his eyes. “I guess you’re not.”

“I work around you lot 80 hours a week, I think I’ve heard it all at this point.” JJ sobered and sought his gaze with her own. “Tell me what it is that has you ‘concerned but not quite concerned.’ You won’t offend me.”

Hotch nodded and plunged ahead. “I guess what I’m worried about is whether or not you know your limitations.”

He was right—it was a potentially offensive statement. But because she’d all ready sworn she wouldn’t get upset, JJ simply raised an eyebrow and quipped, “What makes you think I _have_ limitations? Or need them, for that matter?”

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I knew I wasn’t going to do this well.” He paused, then said, “Last year in North Mammon, I asked you why you didn’t take the classes, become a profiler. Do you remember what you said to me then?”

JJ nodded and smirked a little. “I said not everyone wants to be a profiler.”

Hotch nodded. “You also said that you liked your role. Being the one the families could go to.”

“I do like that. I like it very much.”

“And you’re very good at it,” he said earnestly. “It’s what makes you such a valuable member of the team. You do what none of the others can do, JJ.”

“But--” she prompted. 

“But recently you’ve been doing … well, a profiler’s job. And I don’t mind it—you’re entitled to be in the field if you want to be. But it isn’t a mandatory part of your job—getting down and dirty with the unsubs isn’t, I mean. And lately you have been. A couple of times you haven’t been able to help it—I know that I was wrong in sending just you and Reid out to interview Tobias Henkle without back-up. It got Reid abducted and you mauled by Dobermans.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” she objected. “You had no idea—“

“But I should have had an idea,” he said. “I _should have_. Because I’m the profiler. And I’m the unit chief. And I needed to be a lot more prescient. My carelessness could have gotten you both killed. And today--” He cast his eyes over her and there was more than a little frustration and sadness in his gaze. “You should never have been in that position to have an unsub body-check you. You shouldn’t be sitting here now, in pain, with bruises and ice packs. That’s not your job! I feel like--” He blew out a breath. “I feel like I’m being careless with you and the more I think about it, the worse it makes me feel.” He dropped his voice and his gaze. “I don’t want to be careless with you, JJ. Not with any of my team, certainly, but most of all not with you.”

“Because I’m not a profiler? Because I haven’t taken the classes or had the intensive training?”

“No.” He looked at her then and she was shocked by the burning intensity in his eyes. “Because you’re YOU.” He tightened his grip on her arm just enough to get her to feel the strength of conviction in those words. “JJ—“

“Jen,” she whispered. “Jen is fine.”

“Jen.” He moved up to sit beside her on the couch and took her hand, blocking their hand-clasp from the others with his back. “I don’t want to see again what I saw today—you lying on the ground, stunned, injured. When that gun went off my heart went into my throat. And when I saw you lying there with Reid and Rossi leaning over you—it stayed lodged in my throat until I could see your eyes again.”

She had to take a moment to breathe, to think, to process. She blew out a shaky breath and tried for levity to diffuse the tension of the moment. “You’re not the only one whose heart is in their throat.” She squeezed his hand and was gratified to feel him squeeze back. “Hotch—“

“Aaron,” he corrected softly. 

“Aaron.” She searched for words and couldn’t find any. “God, what a time not to have anything to say!”

He leaned forward, searching her expression. “In a good way or a bad way?”

“In a ‘you completely overwhelmed me and what I really want to do is kiss you but we’re on a jet full of our friends’ way.”

That actually startled a laugh out of him and once he started, she did, too, both giggling at the awkward bashfulness of their conversation until they were full-on laughing. JJ only stopped when her aching ribs reminded her that she wasn’t in any fit shape to laugh or giggle. She held her sides and tried desperately to get her amusement under control. 

“I’m sorry,” Hotch apologized, sobering immediately. “I shouldn’t have made you laugh.”

“Don’t ever apologize for making me laugh—it’s good therapy.” 

“Even when you have bruised ribs?” Hotch leaned over and readjusted her ice pack, his hand lingering on her side longer than it probably needed to. 

“Even then.” She caught his hand in hers, squeezed it then released it. “Are you driving back to DC tonight?”

“I hadn’t thought about it yet.”

“I have room. Stay with me. We can talk.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow. “Depends on your definition of talk.”

“Talk, in this case, means, ‘we won’t be around a jet full of our friends, so I can kiss you instead of having to come up with something to say about whether or not I know my limitations.’”

“I think that kind of talking I can handle.” He stood, gave JJ’s fingers a squeeze, and said, loudly enough for the others to hear, “Get some sleep, JJ.”

“You, too, Hotch,” she replied, as he crossed to the couch nearest her, stretched out, and dimmed the lights. She shut her eyes and let the hum of the plane lull her into sleep. 

END

 


End file.
